LATEST ADDITIONS

When <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/11661">David Hafler</A> sold his Hafler and Acoustat companies to in-car audio manufacturer Rockford-Fosgate a year or so back, things went quiet for a while as the new owners made arrangements to transfer production of both brands to their Arizona facility and took stock of where their new acquisitions stood in the marketplace. Then, at the 1989 CES in Las Vegas, the company made a reasonably sized splash with the first in a new range of Hafler products intended to lift the brand out of the hobbyist-oriented identity it had, perhaps inadvertently, adopted in the last few years.

<i>Where are my LPs? I need a hug.</i><br>
<b>&#151George Reisch, <i>Stereophile</i>, September 1997</b>

Sasha Frere-Jones has a fascinating <A HREF="http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/musical/2008/06/09/080609crmu_mus…; in the June 9 <I>The New Yorker</I> about Antares's Auto-Tune software. In case you aren't familiar with it, Auto-Tune is pitch correction software that is used almost universally in contemporary pop recordings&mdash;sometimes just to "fix" an off note, increasingly frequently as an effect in its own right.

My copy of Peter, Paul, & Mary's <i>Album 1700</i>, which I had bought many years ago for its Bonnie and Clyde album art, wasn't nearly as dusty as <i>Santana</i>. When I inspected it beneath a lamp, however, I noticed that it was covered by a sort of dull, gray film. The vinyl wasn't black. It was sickly. Indeed, this was one of my many albums that had suffered through the dark, dirty waters of a basement flood. Maybe two or three floods. Maybe four.

Some musicians are remembered for a single remarkable album; some are remembered for a hit song&mdash;Bo Diddley will always be remembered for a beat. That eponymous beat&mdash;a rhumba-inflected <I>Bomp a-bomp-a-bomp, bomp, bomp</I>&mdash;may well have been "the most plagiarized rhythm in rock," as <I>Rolling Stone</I> claimed in 2005.

<B>THE COMMITMENTS: <I>Original Soundtrack</I></B><BR>
MCA MCAD-10286 (CD only). Paul Bushnell, Kevin Killen, Alan Parker, prods.; Kevin Killen, eng. AAD. TT: 46:54.

Reader dBruce wants to know where do you sit, lie, or hang when listening? What chair/couch (make & model) is great for listening?

Having visited China and witnessed the building boom firsthand, I must admit that I suspected corners were being cut in construction&mdash;so I wasn't surprised by how many buildings came down. Considering all the construction accidents happening in NYC this year, who am I to look askance at China?

Stephen Mejias, our excellent assistant editor, is fully in the grip of vinyl fever. He and I are now having daily conversations about the once and future allure of the long player.